RIP Seamus Heaney

Absolutely devastated to hear the news that Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in literature has died today.

There are no words to describe this man's impact on Irish poetry, literature and society.

The only thing I can think of, is to share one of my favourite Heaney poems.

From Seamus Heaney's "North" collection, 1975

SUNLIGHT

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.



Rest In Peace, Seamus Heaney, you were much loved and shall be missed.